Interview with John Caplin

John Caplin recalls that the workers who moved to Bletchley to work in Caplin & Co. in 1959 ‘were overwhelmed by the accommodation offered’ but there was difficulty recruiting more skilled staff locally. John recalls his father’s involvement with the Rotary Club, he met various local dignitaries – John Smithie, Bernard Kettle, Raymond Tetlow. Bletchley Urban District Council was supportive of the company, which developed its reprocessing business & import of raw materials over the years. After his three years working in Johannesberg, John returned to Caplin & Co in 1973/74. By then it was much smaller, focused on producing one end product, a very simple tube. John worked with his engineer cousin Michael for eight years building the small business into a profitable concern.

Through meetings with Brian Egan of the GPO and Brian Salter (John’s erstwhile school captain) the company had good contacts to produce high volumes of pipes of various sizes & cables with ‘hockey-stick bends’ at the ends, for the new city on their doorstep. John remembers: ‘Our dictum was ‘the 3 Bs: Big and Black and Bury it!’ He notes that MKDC and the GPO introduced the common trench facility: ‘…dig a big trench and put as much of the infrastructure in as you can’. In order to meet the demand for pipes and cables, they bought in an extrusion line, from France. As well as pipes, John says that half their manufacture was a metre-long L-shaped edging to place on a cube of bricks to move it without a pallet’; Cranfield Institute helped them with packing of these. John, with his technical training, had a huge role in setting up and running the machinery, but his main thrust was on selling and he was credit controller. In 1989/90 the business was sold and John moved into the oil and gas industry, working with colleagues in the Netherlands to develop a valve for BP, using similar engineering. He is based in Milton Keynes, but manufacture is in South Wales. John still enjoys the Stables, and has links too with ‘the Old Smoke’. He says: ‘I’m proud of the new, vibrant opportunity that MK can give to the next generation’. He believes that MK has centres of excellence which should be embraced.